1. Field of the Invention
This patent relates to a method to enable a government agency to increase collection of debts owed to the agency by debtors by providing data to the agency that results in offsetting government payments to such debtors to repay the debts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Federal agencies are authorized to collect delinquent debts owed to a government agency by offsetting Federal payments due to individuals or businesses that may owe these debts. Federal agencies send information in a specified electronic file format to the U. S. Department of the Treasury's Treasury Offset Program (TOP) containing delinquent debts. The file comprises debtor name, taxpayer identification number, address, and debt amount. State tax agencies also send delinquent tax debts to the U. S. Department of the Treasury for offset using the same program. States also have similar programs that offset State tax payments to collect debts owed to State agencies.
One problem encountered by current offset programs is that individuals routinely change their last name as a result of marriage or divorce. Other problems arise when individuals use more than one last name or names with a hyphen. Debtors owing debts to governments generally do not notify the agency to which they owe a debt of the name change. Federal and State agencies seeking to collect delinquent debts use the name they had on file at the time the debtor incurred the debt to Treasury or State tax departments. The payment agency makes a payment, such as a tax refund, to the current name. However, the debtor name and the payee name are different even though it is the same individual. The payment is not offset and the debt is not collected. Public monies are therefore not recovered.
The objective of this invention to provide an automated program that agencies can use to obtain additional names associated with debtors in order to increase collections through offset programs.
Government agencies have information on their debtors in various different systems and formats. Generally, the agency does not have updated information on debtor name changes nor have they formatted names such as those with hyphens and compound names in a manner to ensure offset. Data vendor systems contain information on names and addresses needed by the government agency to obtain and verify additional names associated with their debtors. The problem the government agency experience is matching their systems' data on names and addresses associated with their debtors with data from vendors, validating such data, and providing the additional names in a format acceptable by Treasury and State tax agencies. This invention provides an automated match of data that otherwise would have to be done manually. The invention comprises computerized matching of data from multiple sources to produce matched results. Use of this invention will identify and verify additional names associated with debtors, and provide these names to agencies for inclusion in TOP and other similar State collection programs. The names can be used by Federal Treasury and State tax agencies in their programs that offset government payments to collect delinquent debts, thereby increasing the recovery of public funds.